


Trial and Error

by glacialphoenix



Series: Trial and Error (AU) [1]
Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Community: ff_land
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-04
Updated: 2011-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacialphoenix/pseuds/glacialphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FFIV; AU. Cecil's trial does not succeed, but there are other ways to be holy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trial and Error

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zerrat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zerrat/gifts).



i.

He can fix things; change them for the better, right the wrongs done in Baron’s name. He could --

 _(--erase the fact that he was once a dark knight.)_

All it will take is this one victory.

So he fights until his armour is slick with blood that is both his and not-his, fights until the mirror of himself wavers, flickers, and fades into nothingness.

Exhausted, he looks down at himself, and sees armour that is still resolutely, damningly black.

 _(A true paladin would never have drawn his sword.)_

 

ii.

Rosa has never needed to see his face to know his thoughts; she reaches up and wraps tender arms about him, and for a brief moment his armour feels less heavy.

She is white mage, healer, tender of wounds; he wonders if she can heal this one, too.

 

iii.

The two of them used to talk about everything: life, dreams, hopes, successes, failures. That was years ago; he can no longer remember when or why they stopped.

But here they are now, and who can he talk to if not his best friend?

“Kain,” he says, “What can you do, when you know you are not good enough?”

Kain’s face is hooded in the shadow of his helm, but Cecil swears that for a brief, painful moment, his friend’s gaze flickers over to Rosa, asleep against his shoulder.

Silence reigns.

 

iv.

He leaves for Baron in the morning, Rosa by his side.

(She would not have had it any other way.)

Kain chooses, instead, to stay.

 

v.

Rosa tells him that her mother asks after Kain; neither of them say that the esteemed lady pointedly excludes Cecil from her concerned inquiries.

Cecil would, perhaps, be more insulted by this were he not so plagued with worries, himself.

At night, Rosa slips into his room; he takes comfort in her company.

 

vi.

The King is no longer the same; he is sharper, more acerbic, more paranoid. The Red Wings are Cecil’s again, but only under close scrutiny.

Baigan, trusted advisor, is as suspicious as the king himself.

Cecil does not know what to make of this: he asks Rosa, who grows troubled; he wishes to ask Kain, too, but Kain is not here to ask.

 

vii.

He and Rosa leave, quietly, in the night. They do not know where to go, but anywhere is better than Baron and a King they no longer recognise.

Mysidia will not harbour them; it is only because Rosa is a white mage that they get any information at all. Kain climbed Mount Ordeals, but the trial never manifested; no one knows why.

So they will follow Kain’s trail, then; follow it, until they find him.

 

viii.

They catch up with Kain at Toroia; he agrees to go with them “for a while, at least.”

If the note of relief in Cecil’s voice is obvious, Kain does not mention it.

 

ix.

They return to Baron together; everything falls so easily into place when they are three again. They have grown used to fitting their skills together: white mage dark knight dragoon, healer and guardian and windborne knight.

They root out the conspiracy and destroy it; Cagnazzo falls all-too-swiftly to blade and spear and divine magic.

Cecil thinks: perhaps this was not his wrong to right, after all.

 

x.

The honour and the burden of justice are not his; he finds himself content with that, as he has not been in a long time.

Kain will take up that mantle, and do it well; Cecil can think of none better. But they will all go together, he and Rosa with Kain: this has always been their way, so that Kain will not shoulder his load alone, nor Cecil his.

 

xi.

Mount Ordeals awaits her paladin’s return.


End file.
